How to Find a Behavioral Therapist Who’s Right For You

Finding the right behavioral therapist is like finding “The One.” It takes some time, there are disappointments along the way, and by the time you finally find them, you’re happy that you did.

You don’t need to be ashamed of looking, either – you’re not the only one by a long shot. The U.S. spends $113 billion every year on mental health care.

But like we said, finding the right therapist is a process. Here’s how to find the right one for you.

What is a Behavioral Therapist?

First things first: what is a behavioral therapist?

The term behavioral therapy is an umbrella term, but it generally covers forms of therapy seeking to help individuals identify potentially self-destructive or unhealthy behaviors in order to change them.

That’s because it’s based on the notion that these behaviors are learned, and as such, you can learn healthy behaviors to replace them.

But like we said, behavioral therapy is an umbrella term. Here are four common types you might encounter.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

This is a big name in therapy these days.

This iteration of behavioral therapy melds behavioral and cognitive therapy to focus on how someone’s thoughts and moods influence their actions. Ultimately, the goal is to retrain the mind to use healthier behaviors in solving the problems in their lives.

Aversion Therapy

One way to think of aversion therapy is a reverse of system desensitization – instead of soothing a negative response to a stimulus, your behavioral therapist teaches you to associate a desirable, unhealthy stimulus with an unpleasant one, like a bad memory.

For this reason, it’s a therapy often used in addiction treatment.

Cognitive Behavioral Play Therapy

As the name implies, this version of behavioral therapy involves play. Most often, it involves children – using play as a tool for children to express what they’re uncomfortable expressing verbally.

System Desensitization

If you’ve ever seen a TV show or movie where a therapist teaches someone to overcome phobias by forcing them to face their fears directly, then you’ve heard of system desensitization.

Except, as often happens with TV and movies, it isn’t quite that dramatic.

What happens is reasonably simple. The behavioral therapist teaches you to replace your fear response with a relaxation response through breathing techniques. Then, once you’re comfortable with the techniques, you’ll be slowly exposed to your phobia.

What Certification Do You Trust?

You know what behavioral therapy is and this might help you get a sense of what behavioral therapist you’re looking for. But then the question is: how do you know who to trust?

The cold, hard truth is that there’s no one government agency in the U.S. responsible for overseeing certification processes for psychologists. So what do you do with all those fancy-sounding certifications that you see a lot of therapists touting around? (Certified, Nationally Certified, CBT Certified, oh my!)

Ultimately, it depends on the quality of the certifying organization.

The American Psychological Association, for example, has a list of recognized proficiencies in professional psychology. If your therapist’s specialty isn’t on their list, you’ll automatically know something about their certifying organization.

Some specialty areas, however, are different – cognitive therapists, for example, can only be certified (legitimately, anyway) through the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. Their website has a tool to search for therapists by area.

How to Start Your Search

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Really, though: anyone who’s ever gone on a scavenger hunt for a therapist knows that it’s a long process of trial and error.

Questions to Ask

Therapy isn’t just about the questions your therapist asks you. It’s about the questions you ask them and the questions you ask yourself.

Here are a few things to ask yourself:

What kind of bond do you need with your therapist?

What can you afford (and what are you willing to pay?)

Why are you in therapy?

What problems are you trying to solve?

And here a few things to ask your therapist:

What is your general philosophy to helping?

What do you love about counseling?

How long have you worked in this field?

How much do you charge? What about sliding-scale options?

Places to Look

Okay, you know what kind of therapist you want, and you know what you’re looking for. Where do you find them? (With more than a little anxiety in that last sentence.)

Breathe. It’s a process, remember?

One option is to look around online, but be conscious of how you read reviews – a few detailed reviews are always worth more than a list of vague ones, and take bad reviews with a grain of salt.

Another option, depending on what kind of treatment you’re looking for (inpatient vs outpatient, etc.) is to check out the websites of a few treatment centers in your area to figure out how the programs work and what they offer. Some of them also have blogs with more ideas and information, like this blog here.

A third (decidedly popular) option is to ask your friends and family for recommendations. This also depends on how comfortable you are sharing your search for a behavioral therapist and what you’re going to the therapist for, but a character recommendation from someone you trust works a lot like searching someone online before a date. (Oh come on, you know you Facebook stalk a little before a date.)

Seriously though: if you can find someone you trust to give you a name, great. If it works, even better.

Finding the Behavioral Therapist for You

You’ve got the tools. You know what you want to achieve and what you’re looking for in a behavioral therapist. So what are you waiting for?

Still not sure where to look? No worries. It’s not easy finding “The One”, even if “The One” is your therapist.

The Classifieds section of USA Today is a great place to start – even if you start by looking for your therapist and find someone else essential that was missing from your life.

Plus, the blog has plenty of other solutions to those oddball problems that won’t stop nagging you. Like how to cut down on your bill for plumbing services.